Ye Zhou, a Quiet but Prolific Writer Friend

Last week, I was notified via WeChat friends that my former colleague Ye Xinyao, also known as 叶周 (Ye Zhou) in the Chinese literary circle, died of a heart attack on November 28, 2024 in Anhui Province, China. He was 66. 

Through social media, I read that shortly after his retirement, Ye returned to Shanghai, China in early November, to reunite with his former colleagues and friends. He then went on to Anhui to visit the hometown of his father who had killed himself by jumping from a high-rise building on August 2, 1966. As Vice President of the Shanghai Arts and Writers Union, and deputy head of  the Shanghai Film Studio, Ye Yiqun (叶以群) was driven to suicide by unbearable political persecutions and pressures in the turbulent Cultural Revolution. Little did one anticipate, a father's birthplace became a son's final resting place.

Upon my graduation from Fudan University in 1982, I started to work for the editorial departments of film journals under the joint auspice of Shanghai Arts and Writers, and Shanghai Film Bureau. Under the same roof, there were two separate periodicals, Dianying Xinzuo (New Screenplays for Chinese films), and Screen International. A year after me, Ye joined us. He was an editor for the former, while I was for the latter. From then to the end of 1988 when I left the department for Santa Cruz, California, I always remembered him as a quiet but upright colleague. I more or less contributed his reserved personality to the shadow of his father's premature death.

Soon after starting my Certificate program in Theater Arts at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), I was told that Ye came to the States as well. He entered the Film and TV Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU). After the completion of my program at UCSC, I was accepted by the same department in the spring of 1990. Ye and I helped each other by sharing writing materials, and exchanging ideas and experience. As the months went by, I found it harder and harder to commute from Palo Alto to San Francisco. I decided to discontinue my study at SFSU, but to concentrate on working and saving for my library program in the fall at Berkeley. 

Once in the Great Bay Area, Ye and I should be closer distance-wise from San Francisco to Berkeley either by BART or car. As Ye was extremely reticent by nature, I knew preciously little about his personal life, or professional work. Moreover, I was insanely busy pursuing my library degrees, research work, and eventually job-hunting. I learned indirectly that his wife came to join him. They soon had a daughter, Andrea. Together they now lived in an apartment in Burlingame. He found a job at a local TV station after his graduation. 

In June 1996, I left Berkeley for Santa Cruz to join Paul. Towards the end of that year, Ye called me. He and his family had some time to share, and planned to have a holiday season in Santa Cruz. As we had accepted Lew's invitation to spend our Christmas and New Year in Puerto Vallarta, the proposed reunion did not pan out. As usual, I kept in touch with Ye and his family by sending Christmas cards. One day out of the blue, Ye's wife told me by phone that Ye was leaving for China, but she and her daughter decided to stay, now that she was a qualified accountant and felt comfortable living in this country. Since the call, the whole family had disappeared from our life until I saw his group photos last September when Mr. Fan and his wife visited him and another former colleague of ours in Los Angeles. Personally, I always felt responsible for not being able to get together that eventful 1996 Christmas. Things might have turned out differently if our schedules did not collide, and two families had met. 

Following his passing, Chinese media on both side of the Pacific have explored his life. He turned out to be a prolific writer, critic, and TV producer. His literary career peaked since 2017, leaving behind an impressive legacy of published fiction, nonfiction, collections of essays and articles, and media productions curated partly by OCLC, an international bibliographic utility. He was equally well-known among Chinese writers in Southern California and China by holding the title of Honorary President of Chinese Writers Association of America (CWAA) in Los Angeles.

Ye, quiet but with an inner volcano for literary creations, will be missed. He lived a short but prolific life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BY YE ZHOU

Fiction (长篇小说)

《旧金山的雾》(2022)

《美国爱情》

《丁香公寓》(2014)

Nonfiction (长篇非虚构)

《世纪波澜中的文化记忆》

Essays (散文集)

《文脉传承的践行者 : 叶以群百年诞辰纪念文集》(2011)

《地老天荒》(2013)

《巴黎盛宴 : 城市历史中的爱情》(2015)

《伸展的文学地图》(2020)

Alverda Left Her Heart at Davenport

Yesterday afternoon, a call came in, while I was writing a memorial piece for my former colleague Ye. It was from Luisa, Alverda Orlando's twin daughter. My heart instinctively sank on hearing her voice. I was going to swing by Alverda's apartment to deliver some chocolate, on my way to Ann's home to return her shirt. As there were lots of errands to take care of before Nick arrived, I had to stay home.

Alverda Orlando passed peacefully away at 4:00 am, December 14, 2024 at Brookdale Nursing Home located at #100 Lockwood Lane. The cause of death is pneumonia complications. She was 94.

I knew Alverda when I started to work as an extra help librarian for Santa Clara County Libraries (SCCL) in May 1996. I was relocating from Berkeley to Santa Cruz. Since the opportunity for a full-time position was scarce then, I applied to both SCCL and San Jose State University for temporary and part time jobs. Alverda, retired from Santa Cruz Public Libraries (SCPL), was one of the four fellow trainees at Cupertino Library of SCCL. Upon the completion of two weeks' training, we could be qualified to start our service for elected branch libraries. 

One day after the training in the parking lot of Cupertino, Paul asked Alverda if she could give me a ride to Santa Cruz the next day, for I had not driven solo over Highway 17. Alverda readily agreed. That was the beginning of our nearly three decades' friendship. In the ensuing months and years, we carpooled over the hill whenever we could until I started my employment with DIALOG Corp. in July 1997. 

During those unstable but carefree years, our friendship flourished beyond carpooling. I learned tremendously from her, such as her professional reference skills in a public library setting, her research on Davenport and north coast areas, many colorful anecdotes in and outside SCPL, and her keen interest in library history. She was a rare specimen among public librarians, well-read and well-published. She researched, wrote and published well into her nineties, winning many prestige awards and grants, such as the Distinguished Historian of 2001 by History Forum of MAH, 2007 and 2017 Dolkas-Mertz Award, and the 2011 James Dolkas Memorial Fund.

Alverda was warm and generous to a fault. In 2000, she took in Nick to live with her for more than three weeks, when Paul and I visited my sick father in Shanghai, China. Since I started to work for SCPL, She, Nick, and I met regularly for our Friday dinner. After Nick left for college, she suggested that we add Donna and later Pam to our dinner table. Our Friday monthly dinners lasted until Covid-19. Over those dinners, we exchanged our ideas and achievements. With her wealth of experience and knowledge, we three learned and were benefited accordingly. Alverda has forever been our calming and solid rock anchoring our respective lives and challenges. She always has had advice for every occasion. "Anyway," she would start. 

Together with Davenport, we will miss you, Alverda!

Overtaxing USPS: a Comedy of Errors

In an attempt to economize shipping cost, I accidentally managed to overtax the fragile workload of US Post Office (USPS) by combining three transactions into one, totaling a package weight to 24 pounds. 

In November 4, 2024, I wrote to the Editor of the California State Library Foundation (CSLF) to purchase 50 copies of Bulletin that serialized my article on Laura Steffens Suggett in issues 141-144. She graciously accepted my request and delegated the task to her copy editor who finalized a phone order on November 7. I was excited and expecting the package to sit on our doorstep in the issuing days, just like any packages or boxes from Amazon or Costco. 

For some mysterious reason, the expected package after two weeks never showed up. On November 18, I wrote to the copy editor to ascertain if there was any error in our address. He confirmed that the shipping address was all in order, and advised me to contact our local USPS. Per his advice, Paul immediately checked our local office. It turned out USPS was unable to trace a package, if there was no tracking number. Apparently his mail room did not add any tracking number even when the value of package exceeded $400. Worse still, a return address was omitted in the process, so the lost package could not be returned when it failed to be delivered.  In addition, we asked our mailman for help. He has been actively looking for the package on his local route, with no results. 

On November 22, I wrote to the Editor about the troubling shipment. She replied with apologies on December 2, as soon as the holiday closure was over and CSLF was in operation. The very next day, a fresh shipment with the same content was dispatched with a tracking number and insurance for a value of $410. I received a confirmation email the same day, promising the new package would arrive by 9:00 pm on Friday, September 6, but our door step remained empty. The same night I created an online account with USPS. It repeated the same message about 9:00 pm Friday being the delivery time. 

The next day, Paul saw our mailman's substitute and inquired about the second shipment. The substitute mailman kindly provided him with a direct phone number for the regional supervisor. After many phone attempts, Paul was finally able to discuss the issue with the supervisor after 6:00 pm. It seemed that Amazon shipments were USPS priority items. Since our shipment was unusually heavy with 24 pounds, it was apparently considered the lowest among the priority list. Fortunately it was insured and tracked, and would be processed eventually. Thank you, the CSLF Editor, for your wise insight and foresight, or it would have meet the same fate as the first missing package.

The expected shipment that should appear today has been erroneously routed from San Jose to Wyoming, Michigan by a mere act of misscanning. Homer's Odyssey is continuing. Hopefully, the journey will not take as long as Odysseus did.

Trough more than a month long delivery time for a media matter package from Sacramento to Santa Cruz, I have learned my lesson: the weight matters with USPS. Don't ever try to be outsmart the unwritten rule by consolidating transactions, especially during the holiday season. No one wants to break their backs by lifting any weighty objects.